Sunday (Oct 2) – we attended in the afternoon the beginning REM (Resource Management) potluck at the chair of Geography’s house. The weather was fine (no rain as last year), and the turnout fine, and the food great. Our host cooked BBQ Elk ribs, smoked a turkey, and fixed antelope/deer chili. There was also a Minnesotan’s made soup with carrots, chicken, wild rice, and it was really yummy. There were large baked potatoes from the same place I got mine on Saturday. We ate so much we didn’t need any dinner.
Monday brought good news from my Cardiologist’s nurse, via email:
Nancy,
Just sent the ultrasound report to Dr. Schmitt. Looks great, no renal artery stenosis, no abdominal aneurysm.
CEM
John and I put fruit (Honey crisp apples and large yellow Shiro plums)
http://www.grandpasorchard.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=trees.plantDetail&plant_id=49
and 3 Roma tomatoes for good measure to fill the last small part of the last tray.
John is working on a note to a friend about the photography elements of the dragonfly picture. I worked on cleaning dishes, handling emails, looking for receipts to be reimbursed for department purchases, and we ate leftovers from yesterday: baked potato and Smoked turkey, adding our own tomato (very tasty). It is a hybrid Big Boy and our first this year to ripen. John checked and he paid $1.79 for the seed packet. We hope for more before the “end” of the season. We have not yet had a freeze and have our fingers crossed that we don’t. John cut up some cheddar cheese to sprinkle on the heated potato, and also we put some parmesan/garlic cracker chips on the plate.
Now we have just cleaned up another dehydrator I got at the yard sale last Friday. We have put peaches & apples in it so far. I sat down to rest while John finished coring apples. My hands were getting too cold in the ice water lemon juice we are pre-treating them with. He finished and now two are working. We still have one other we borrowed from a friend, so one of these days we will have to load it.
Tuesday. Was a busy day from the get-go. Started with getting ready to go to the family physician in Cle Elum. I missed breakfast, so John stopped at the Cle Elum Bakery (renowned for great baked goods), and we got a plate with donuts and apple fritters on it ($3.00 for five). Two chocolate bars, a donut with yellow crème in the center hole, and 2 fritters. I didn’t have my drink along, and John doesn’t like coffee, but I got a cup of brewed stuff to go with mine, putting in half and half and sweetener. It was quite good. The place has two small tables – both tilt a bit if bumped. We tried both. Sloshed coffee twice. Told owner. Fix promised.
We had made the trip with time to spare for getting to the 10:45 appt. John went along because he was also going to get a flu shot (as I was), but I had an appt. to talk about various recent tests and rashes I had, and the need for an inhaler. All was taken care of with good results. Cost of the inhaler was a surprise: $40 and that was after my insurance paid $10. If it works it will be worth it.
After the appointment we went to BK for a Whopper; had a coupon, buy one, and get one free. We didn’t get any fries or drink to go along with it. We don’t think they made much money on us today.
Got a phone call from the Internet tech support here in town, after my complaint this morning to Kansas about our DSL service being impossible (slow, intermittent, zip) starting at 4:30, and still not working at 10:00 p.m. last night. They finally fixed it. It was a problem with the DSL connector box 1/3 mile from our house.
I went to town by myself today to my massage therapy session, then to the pharmacy for my meds, and by our car repair garage to schedule my Subaru in for an oil change. We will be without John’s Subaru all next week while it gets repaired following the kiss & run by the deer.
John went over to do work for the farm family across the street. He was gone for several hours after I got back home. I never asked him what time he left. The dogs and cat were happy to see me.
I put some more tomatoes in the dehydrator, fed the cat, and started working on emails and cleaning up an account that is filling up. When John came home, it was just before dark, so he fed the horses, outside cats (now he climbs a ladder and puts the food up at the top of the hay shed on the hay, where the 3 cats sleep (and now eat). The skunk, we assume, will not manage to get up there to steal food. Then John went and picked strawberries. I fixed them after dinner, and we will have them on ice cream for dessert.
John fixed our dinner: leftover Rainbow Trout (from last night), baked potato with cheese, a cut yellow plum, some of his homemade applesauce, and some little crackers.
We decided to wait on putting up fruit till morning (into the dehydrator), and just after I sat down to work on the computer, in comes Rascal with something alive. I followed him down the hall to the computer room, telling John he had something again. Turned out it was a brown frog! (small one). John took the cat and put him outside and I got a paper towel and picked up the little frog. Took him out to the front yard and released him, alive and well. Boy, we have quite a little hunter, but I wish he wouldn’t bring them into the house through the doggie door. It is nearing too-cold for snakes. Little favors.
Wednesday. Unusual that it rained all night and most of the day. Usual stuff for this day; played music (just two of us) at Food Bank Soup Kitchen, and we had Ham/noodle (more like dumplings) soup, green beans, a biscuit and fruit (canned) on sponge cake. Personally, I didn’t enjoy the fruit at all, after all the fresh fruit we have been eating the past 2 weeks. At 1:00 p.m. I thought I had time to get to the bank following my blood draws, but they were busy and I had to wait a half hour. I decided to stay and wait. So, I was late arriving at the exercise class by about 12 minutes. It’s okay. They were happy to see me and Jan had already starting leading the class with my CD of Fifties songs. After that, I picked up some clothes from a friend, and came on home. I’m going back in tonight for a Cancer Donation Bingo game, from 6 to 8:00 and searched through the leftover rainbow trout for bones, and have a clean dish of fish. Rascal had some too. He loves to eat people food. Also threw in some leftover pieces of apple fritter and he ate those. In the mornings, John shares his buttered toast with Rascal. We will add the remaining fish to spaghetti sauce and I will eat when I get home.
I’m home and just finished eating with John. We had his homemade applesauce with dinner. In town, I won one game and picked out a nice red nylon sweatshirt type with a V neck, and an emblem on it saying City of Ellensburg, Adult Activity Center. Pretty nice for all the time I spend there. I brought John some toll house cookies from there tonight. It is still rainy outside, and cool.
Thursday. Still overcast and now very windy. Jeez, I hope it clears up before Saturday when we have to play music at a Farm Festival in a field southeast of us! Just checked the future weather and it claims no rain, light wind (really), and temps at 62. We both went to town and never got lunch, so I’m sitting here at 5:45 p.m. munching on dried fruit. John has gone to the neighbors to pick pears. We are having rib eye steak (was on sale today), and baked potato. There will be leftover steak he can take tomorrow for his lunch. He is going again to do trail work at Foss River. Okay–today, we dropped my car off at Royal Vista and he drove me to get some more of the potatoes and carrots (that come from east of us over past Moses Lake). We bought probably 40 pounds of potatoes, 10 pounds for a friend, and maybe 20 pounds of carrots. I lost track because I was in a hurry to get back to play music. They gave us a box of culled carrots for our horses (broken pieces or really strange looking ones). After John helped me get into the nursing home with all my stuff, he went shopping. Came back for me about 3:00. He took my violin and the vegetables home. I went over to a Museum presentation at Dean Hall (where I used to teach), on Tall Tales via postcards from all over the U.S.
http://funnypagenet.com/tall-tale-postcards/
http://www.cwu.edu/~web/cwu_news/News.php?ArticleID=2903
It was interesting. They were going to have a folksinger and someone doing some storytelling, but I just looked at the Museum “show” and introduced myself to a few people, and left.
Then I called John and we met at the auto repair shop. He had the box of carrots and potatoes in the car and we dropped them off at our friends’ house on the way home. There was only $1.25 worth, and she gave us $2.00. Said it still wouldn’t cover the gasoline! On home and my cell phone rang. It was the fellow at the repair shop. He had found already that the right-side drive axle was throwing oil and needs replaced. We had heard a funny noise, but had not said anything to him about it. It was intermittent, and I don’t drive that car very often because it takes higher grade gasoline than our other one. I had actually forgotten about the noise. It occurred occasionally when backing out of my “parking” space in the 3-sided shed out front, and backing up to the left, to go out the driveway to the right. Anyway, in the good ol’ USA we make sharper right-hand turns than left-hand turns. That causes failure of the right-side drive axle sooner than the left one. Who knew? At 53,440 miles.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/how-to/maintenance/1715877
Tonight before dinner Rascal brought in a baby Vole. We didn’t thank him, but John picked him up and put him outside. He dropped the Vole from his mouth as John put him out the door, so the door got closed with the vole inside. John grabbed him up with a plastic bag, and I let Rascal back in. We hope he gets the idea not to bring home live critters.
Friday. Nice wake up call. My Subaru is fixed and ready. They found an axle last night to install and replaced it this morning along with changing the oil. A boot on the foot of the axle was spewing oil on the inside of the engine and they found it upon an entry inspection when I took it in yesterday afternoon (at 4:15). Good we took it in ahead of time because they had time to find and order the part last night. We began doing business with this place in 1990 after the local Chevy dealer replaced belts but did not tighten the fan back into place. On a trip to Yakima we had to stop and borrow a wrench to fix it. 21 years later we still haven’t been back to that dealer.
Off today for potluck at AAC (stuffed baked potatoes, KFC chicken, and lots of stuff brought as potluck), and exercise after and to Starlight at 4:00 to wish Morris well in his retirement for health reasons. He is a wonderful friend, and was hired the same year as I (back in 1988).
John made it home safely from his trip to the woods again, and brought back more of the good corn on the cob, and 25 pounds of Gala apples at 68¢/pound. While having lunch on the trail, he took a photo of two trees — see here:
http://www.elixant.com/~nancyh/WTA-WestForkFossRiver/BigTree-WestForkFossRiver.html
It stays dry under the big one and the little “j-shaped” one in the middle of the trail presented a problem. John cleared dozens of thorny Devil’s Club
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mlafleche2/3615853600/
from the up-hill side (behind the black & yellow rain jacket), dug out a new tread there, pulling the debris around and past the little tree. Almost like a miracle, it seems the tree just moved to the right.
Saturday. It was 35 degrees early in the morning before sunrise on the front porch post with just a quick frost away from the house. There was a little wind until about 3 a.m. and then none – Clear sky and no wind and the temp went down. I was scheduled to be at a family farm 7 miles away to play music. I dressed warmly in two pairs of pants (denim jeans on top), and 4 tops. A cotton ¾ sleeve blouse on the bottom, covered by a windbreaker type V neck shirt, a black sweatshirt with pumpkins embroidered on it, and over that a heavy vest. I had a glove on my right hand to hold my bow (because it was in the shade and getting cold). My left fiddle-fingering hand was in the sun, so that was nice. I took the glove off after 2 hours. We started playing music just after 10:00 a.m. — eventually there were 6 of us (3 violins, a viola, a guitar, and a banjo). A couple of our group came in after 3 of us started. We played till noon and broke for lunch. They fed us a bowl of chili with all sorts of toppings, and a grilled hotdog, with chips, and an apple. Drinks were coffee or pop or water. We went back to playing after a half hour break, and played until almost 2:30 p.m. That is much longer than we normally play. We were all tired with sore fingers and arms. It was volunteer, but they paid us with our lunch, and a Goat Milk Product. I chose a bottle (canister) of goat milk cream (with other ingredients, such as aloe). Would have cost me $12.95 if I had bought it myself. They had soap and various products, including chocolate muffins, which I did not have one of. John came and picked me up and visited a little with folks there. While I was gone, he helped our neighbors pick pears and then loaded wood in his pickup and took it over to toss in their woodshed. He will go back over later and stack it.
I did not sleep well last night, and this play day was tiring, so I came home and lay down at 4:15. Last I looked it was 4:29, and then John came in from running the dogs and feeding the horses and I awoke (at 5:45).
This morning before we left, John took the dogs and our oldest (and smallest dog), Meghan, got chased and rolled by a coyote. John saw it and went running toward it, yelling, and it peeled off back into the woods. Then tonight, the same dog got chased by a deer, and John went toward the fence that Meghan came under and was only 6 feet from the deer. Again he yelled and when it saw him, the deer ran back down into the pasture. Annie (our youngest) saw what was happening and she started chasing the deer. John called her off. Rather a full day for all.
We had not see the outside cats for a couple of days, but tonight the younger cats (Woody and Little Sue) are back, playing and eating with Rascal, in the top of the hay shed on the side of our house. We have not seen Big Sue. We hope she stays away. We wonder if she returned and took them along with her over to our neighbors across the street, where she had been being fed. It could be they found their way back to our place where they feel more comfortable.
Once I was home, John picked yellow squash, and really spent most of his time while I was sleeping, picking and de-husking Carpathian walnuts from our 7 trees. Now he has to find a cool dark place to store them to cure.
Guess I should get this finished and sent to John to put on the blog. We hope your week has been a good one, and next week is even better.
Nancy & John
on the Naneum Fan.